


Harmony and other bedtime stories

by Nichomen



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:51:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1329124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nichomen/pseuds/Nichomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s the album cover to the music in his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Harmony

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [Heaven on the Ground by José James & Emily King](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6DOI4zHGgw)

Tim hears the ghost of a beat watching the soft rise and fall of Jason’s chest as he sleeps.  He can’t identify it, feels as if it could be real but also a delusion. Regardless, it’s there; in tune with life, embodied by Jason and the cycle of his breath.

When he twitches, the book slips from his stomach, slides but catches the hem of his shirt. It makes a sound that only adds to the tune.

The bed creaks when Tim moves, and he hears a crinkle. Documents scattered beneath him disrupt the tempo for only a second before the imaginary rhythm thrums on. His eyes fixate back to Jason, still asleep, sunlight pouring through to paint one half of his body in stark whites and amber, the other half in shadows.

He’s the album cover to the music in his head.

He crawls forward from his end of the bed, tossing papers aside as crassly as Jason had the night before, searching for a place to sleep.

_There’s no room on the bed, so-_

Tim snorts, loud but halted, glancing towards the tornado of files, documents, books, and what-have-you’s strewn haphazardly on the floor.

_You were saying?_

He finds himself nodding off; body folded neatly besides Jason’s, a new perspective, a closer look, and the tempo picks up, fast and erratic, as he draws near. Jason doesn’t snore, but his mouth parts and filters in soft breaths that dry his lips, like his voice. Dry, smoky, and sharpened by his wit (a little deadpan, too, but Tim doesn’t mind, not really).

Tim reaches over, picking up the book clinging desperately to the hem of Jason’s shirt. He reads the first paragraph of the open page, gathers little from it, and stores the information in his head. A man named Logan stares off towards the silhouette of a city in the morning fog, feeling cold and dreary, but otherwise satisfied. He folds the page, placing it beside Jason.

Somewhere, there is a man named Logan, and Jason will know everything about him.

This final movement finally stirs Jason from his sleep, head lulling to the side to see a body pressed awkwardly beside his, and smacks his lips.

Tim knows why he did it. His lips were dry; waking up, it was the natural thing to do.  Still, with the sound of the soft smack, his hand reaches for the sharp angle of Jason’s jaw, and leans forward, stooping to see the non-color of Jason’s blue-green eyes bore lazily into him. His breath hitches when Jason closes the gap, eyes shut.

Tim does nothing, freezes when the music stops in his head, caught off guard. The dry press of lips against his, the sensation of cracked skin and thin veil of spit cause a momentary skip in his brain.

 

Jason pulls back, eyes open, face half-breaking into a smirk ready to laugh—but Tim stops him from making a sound, bounding forward, noses bumping, and Jason makes a small yelp when Tim’s fingers dig into his shoulders and his body twists, knees burrowing into the blankets on either sides of his hips.

The second kiss is less like kissing a pillow and much more like kissing a person, and despite Tim’s desperate attempt to undo his previous error, Jason is laughing, disruptive huffs that force their mouths to part at constant intervals until Tim is laughing too. He’s clutching and shaking and laughing and his body is a live wire of nerves Jason has only ever seen for instances on patrol.

Tim leans in again, all warmth in his kiss. Tim has had many more chances to practice sweet, dripping love, but it’s all sloppy affection and no technique. The kind of kiss that’s horrible and laughable but so genuine you’d dismiss it, because it’s _him_. Jason stops to think how many others have thought this, how Mister Perfectionist couldn’t kiss worth a damn.

But still, he knew it didn’t matter. Because it was Tim, no one cared. No one cares when they’re in love.

Well, Jason didn’t know if he was in love. But right now, it was nice, nice to kiss someone that didn’t know they had nothing to show, and even nicer to kiss someone without needing to show anything. So Jason indulged in it, in him, thriving for once in not feeling the need to take control, study what real affection was in the intimacy of a cluttered bed barely fit for two grown men; and for once in this long string of moments, he felt as if some sleazy God in the ether was giving him a chance to be an innocent, passionate, damningly hormonal teen again.

And he did so by letting Tim lead the way, what with all his experience in messy love and kisses.

This time Tim parts, all goofy, smiles of teeth and cheek and hooded eyes, proud, confident, sending a soft thump clamoring through Jason’s head. It’s unfamiliar, the melody ringing between them, but Jason hums to it.

He can’t quite place whether it’s his own heartbeat or Tim’s.

 


	2. Silence and other noises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written a long time ago

Tim’s hair was unusually soft despite the layers of dirt and the daylight that spilled onto his head against the pillow. That same softness spilled onto the features of his sleeping face, the soft, sepia tone curve of his back illuminated by the half-boarded window.

Scars etched that curve in the best way possible.

Jason’s eyes were sleep marred and crinkled, a face twisted into a grimace of morning grogginess that betrayed the light and bubbles in his chest. The teenage giddiness of another body in your bed, another body against yours.

Love.

No scratch that—affection.

Right now there was affection in the way his own calloused fingers moved soft hair from poking at Tim’s nose, and it was imagination that felt that softness of hair against those same calloused fingertips, then against his lips.

The kiss? Maybe a moment of affection, or maybe something more. Something less.

And by reflex, some twisted result of a soldier’s breeding, Tim moves, out of the soft sunlight, backwards into the shadows of the bed, and stiffens. One eye opens, then the other, before he stretches, silent. The whole room is silent for him. His eyes meet Jason’s lips before tracing the features of his face: crooked jaw, crooked nose, crooked ears and smile. But the way his eyes bore into him, the eyes of the once-dead gleaming with the sepia-tone sunlight, seem so alive; the eyes of a predator, licking its lips, Tasting its prey.

But it’s oh so affectionate.

Love?

No, it can’t be. Tim laughs, breaking that so-serious expression on Jason’s face, that makes him withdraw his curious, calloused hands. He laughs and hoists himself off the mattress, letting the sunlight catch his skin.

Perfect, perfect scars.

There’s so much more in this city than Jason and Tim. There’s the ratty kitchen shimmied against the foot of the bed, the old man down the hallway who peels paint off his door. A car alarm weakly bleats on the streets below, and someone yells at its unknown owner to shut it up. There’s so much going on in Gotham in that one moment, but Jason could care less.

All he can think about is Tim brushing his teeth in the bathroom, with less-than-okay water. There’s only one toothbrush, and it’s Jason’s. So who’s toothbrush is Tim using?

Fascinating, it’s a fascinating thought, for one person to use another’s toothbrush. For some reason, in all of Gotham, right now in this moment, there’s nothing more enchanting than Tim using Jason’s toothbrush. 

There’s nothing more captivating than the scars on Tim’s back and the softness of his hair (did he imagine it against his calloused fingers? No, they were still soft against chapped lips as well.)

Tim spits, turns the faucet, moves items around the sink. From where his head lies against the pillow, Jason can see him move, and thanks himself for not installing a door to the bathroom. It’s the only window he needs right now.

Tim comes back into the space that is Jason’s, after using his toothbrush, using his bed. What happened last night was their story alone, whether it was love, passion, something innocent…

… well there are more interesting things in Gotham to discuss than this or that short time and space.


End file.
